Communications, Cultural and Political Affairs at the Embassy of the Kingdom of Netherlands in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Mak Kapetanovic is a communications expert with, both natural affinity and extensive experience in the field of communications, particularly within creative industries and public sector. His talent and love for communications was evident even before he was aware of it himself. As a high school student and a refugee in the Netherlands, Mak created events and developed ways of communication to educate the Dutch youth about his homeland and events taking place there at the time. After studying Sociology in his home town of Sarajevo, he moved back to the Netherlands where he obtained a degree in Communication Studies. After graduating, his professional career took a turn towards the film industry, where he worked for a number of years, both as a film producer and the film festival director. Since 2012 he is based in Sarajevo where he works as the Communications and Public Diplomacy Policy Officer at the Embassy of the Netherlands in Sarajevo, while at the same time running a non-governmental organization *Public Room* and working as an independent strategic communications consultant. He has developed and implemented a large number of projects, events, campaigns and strategies. Throughout his professional career and work experience, communication was always the driving force for Mak’s work, the pervasive motivation which pushed him to constantly improve his skills. It was always about delivering a message and doing that in a unique and creative way. His efforts were recognized by the European Cultural Foundation in 2010, when he received a nomination for the *Best project of 2010*, as well as by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs with the Award for the Best Communication and Public Diplomacy Annual Strategy in 2015.